Highly efficient terahertz photoconductive metasurface detectors operating at microwatt-level gate powers

Hale, Lucy L.; Harris, C. Thomas; Luk, Ting Shan; Addamane, Sadhvikas J.; Reno, John L.; Brener, Igal; Mitrofanov, Oleg

doi:10.1364/ol.427798

Highly efficient terahertz photoconductive metasurface detectors operating at microwatt-level gate powers

Journal Article · Thu Jun 24 00:00:00 EDT 2021 · Optics Letters

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1364/ol.427798· OSTI ID:1810334

^[1]; Harris, C. Thomas ^[2]; Luk, Ting Shan ^[2]; Addamane, Sadhvikas J. ^[2]; Reno, John L. ^[2]; Brener, Igal ^[2]; Mitrofanov, Oleg ^[1]

Univ. College London (United Kingdom)
Sandia National Lab. (SNL-NM), Albuquerque, NM (United States)

Despite their wide use in terahertz (THz) research and technology, the application spectra of photoconductive antenna (PCA) THz detectors are severely limited due to the relatively high optical gating power requirement. This originates from poor conversion efficiency of optical gate beam photons to photocurrent in materials with sub-picosecond carrier lifetimes. Here we show that using an ultra-thin (160 nm), perfectly absorbing low-temperature grown GaAs metasurface as the photoconductive channel drastically improves the efficiency of THz PCA detectors. This is achieved through perfect absorption of the gate beam in a significantly reduced photoconductive volume, enabled by the metasurface. This Letter demonstrates that sensitive THz PCA detection is possible using optical gate powers as low as 5 µW—three orders of magnitude lower than gating powers used for conventional PCA detectors. We show that significantly higher optical gate powers are not necessary for optimal operation, as they do not improve the sensitivity to the THz field. This class of efficient PCA THz detectors opens doors for THz applications with low gate power requirements.

View Accepted Manuscript (DOE)

Research Organization:: Sandia National Laboratories (SNL-NM), Albuquerque, NM (United States)

Sponsoring Organization:: USDOE; USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES)

Grant/Contract Number:: AC04-94AL85000; NA0003525

OSTI ID:: 1810334

Alternate ID(s):: OSTI ID: 1798410

Report Number(s):: SAND--2021-7185J; 696921

Journal Information:: Optics Letters, Journal Name: Optics Letters Journal Issue: 13 Vol. 46; ISSN 0146-9592

Publisher:: Optical Society of America (OSA)Copyright Statement

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

References (31)

Dielectric Structure with Periodic Strips for Increasing Radiation Power of Photoconductive Antennas: Theoretical Analysis Khorshidi, Mohammadreza; Dadashzadeh, Gholamreza Journal of Infrared, Millimeter, and Terahertz Waves, Vol. 38, Issue 5 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10762-016-0354-x	journal	January 2017
Terahertz Detection with Perfectly-Absorbing Photoconductive Metasurface Siday, Thomas; Vabishchevich, Polina P.; Hale, Lucy Nano Letters, Vol. 19, Issue 5 https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.nanolett.8b05118	journal	March 2019
Efficient Three-Dimensional Photonic–Plasmonic Photoconductive Switches for Picosecond THz Pulses Georgiou, Giorgos; Geffroy, Clément; Bäuerle, Christopher ACS Photonics, Vol. 7, Issue 6 https://doi.org/10.1021/acsphotonics.0c00044	journal	May 2020
Plasmonic Antireflection Coating for Photoconductive Terahertz Generation Fesharaki, Faezeh; Jooshesh, Afshin; Bahrami-Yekta, Vahid ACS Photonics, Vol. 4, Issue 6 https://doi.org/10.1021/acsphotonics.7b00410	journal	June 2017
Nanoplasmonic Terahertz Photoconductive Switch on GaAs Heshmat, Barmak; Pahlevaninezhad, Hamid; Pang, Yuanjie, Nano Letters, Vol. 12, Issue 12 https://doi.org/10.1021/nl303314a	journal	February 2012
Enhancement of Terahertz Pulse Emission by Optical Nanoantenna Park, Sang-Gil; Jin, Kyong Hwan; Yi, Minwoo ACS Nano, Vol. 6, Issue 3 https://doi.org/10.1021/nn204542x	journal	February 2012
Significant performance enhancement in photoconductive terahertz optoelectronics by incorporating plasmonic contact electrodes Berry, C. W.; Wang, N.; Hashemi, M. R. Nature Communications, Vol. 4, Issue 1 https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms2638	journal	March 2013
Broadband terahertz generation from metamaterials Luo, Liang; Chatzakis, Ioannis; Wang, Jigang Nature Communications, Vol. 5, Article No. 3055 https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms4055	journal	January 2014
Femtosecond photo-switching of interface polaritons in black phosphorus heterostructures Huber, Markus A.; Mooshammer, Fabian; Plankl, Markus Nature Nanotechnology, Vol. 12, Issue 3 https://doi.org/10.1038/nnano.2016.261	journal	December 2016
An ultrafast terahertz scanning tunnelling microscope Cocker, Tyler L.; Jelic, Vedran; Gupta, Manisha Nature Photonics, Vol. 7, Issue 8 https://doi.org/10.1038/nphoton.2013.151	journal	July 2013
Advances in terahertz communications accelerated by photonics Nagatsuma, Tadao; Ducournau, Guillaume; Renaud, Cyril C. Nature Photonics, Vol. 10, Issue 6 https://doi.org/10.1038/nphoton.2016.65	journal	May 2016
Compact and ultra-efficient broadband plasmonic terahertz field detector Salamin, Yannick; Benea-Chelmus, Ileana-Cristina; Fedoryshyn, Yuriy Nature Communications, Vol. 10, Issue 1 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-019-13490-x	journal	December 2019
Electric field correlation measurements on the electromagnetic vacuum state Benea-Chelmus, Ileana-Cristina; Settembrini, Francesca Fabiana; Scalari, Giacomo Nature, Vol. 568, Issue 7751 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-019-1083-9	journal	April 2019
Transmembrane Interactions of Full-length Mammalian Bitopic Cytochrome-P450-Cytochrome-b5 Complex in Lipid Bilayers Revealed by Sensitivity-Enhanced Dynamic Nuclear Polarization Solid-state NMR Spectroscopy Yamamoto, Kazutoshi; Caporini, Marc A.; Im, Sang-Choul Scientific Reports, Vol. 7, Issue 1 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-017-04219-1	journal	June 2017
Terahertz wave detection performance of photoconductive antennas: Role of antenna structure and gate pulse intensity Yano, R.; Gotoh, H.; Hirayama, Y. Journal of Applied Physics, Vol. 97, Issue 10 https://doi.org/10.1063/1.1905792	journal	May 2005
Effect of defect saturation on terahertz emission and detection properties of low temperature GaAs photoconductive switches Rihani, Samir; Faulks, Richard; Beere, Harvey Applied Physics Letters, Vol. 95, Issue 5 https://doi.org/10.1063/1.3193680	journal	August 2009
Total absorption by degenerate critical coupling Piper, Jessica R.; Liu, Victor; Fan, Shanhui Applied Physics Letters, Vol. 104, Issue 25 https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4885517	journal	June 2014
Resonant cavities for efficient LT-GaAs photoconductors operating at λ = 1550 nm Billet, M.; Latzel, P.; Pavanello, F. APL Photonics, Vol. 1, Issue 7 https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4954771	journal	October 2016
A polarization-insensitive plasmonic photoconductive terahertz emitter Li, Xurong; Yardimci, Nezih Tolga; Jarrahi, Mona AIP Advances, Vol. 7, Issue 11 https://doi.org/10.1063/1.5006273	journal	November 2017
Efficient photoconductive terahertz detector with all-dielectric optical metasurface Mitrofanov, Oleg; Siday, Thomas; Thompson, Robert J. APL Photonics, Vol. 3, Issue 5 https://doi.org/10.1063/1.5011420	journal	May 2018
Perfectly absorbing dielectric metasurfaces for photodetection Mitrofanov, Oleg; Hale, Lucy L.; Vabishchevich, Polina P. APL Photonics, Vol. 5, Issue 10 https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0019883	journal	October 2020
Generation and detection of terahertz pulsed radiation with photoconductive antennas and its application to imaging Tani, Masahiko; Herrmann, Michael; Sakai, Kiyomi Measurement Science and Technology, Vol. 13, Issue 11 https://doi.org/10.1088/0957-0233/13/11/310	journal	October 2002
Theory of metasurface based perfect absorbers Alaee, Rasoul; Albooyeh, Mohammad; Rockstuhl, Carsten Journal of Physics D: Applied Physics, Vol. 50, Issue 50 https://doi.org/10.1088/1361-6463/aa94a8	journal	November 2017
A Polarization-Resolved Study of Nanopatterned Photoconductive Antenna for Enhanced Terahertz Emission Rana, Goutam; Bhattacharya, Arkabrata; Gupta, Abhishek IEEE Transactions on Terahertz Science and Technology, Vol. 9, Issue 2 https://doi.org/10.1109/TTHZ.2019.2891022	journal	March 2019
Review of terahertz photoconductive antenna technology Burford, Nathan M.; El-Shenawee, Magda O. Optical Engineering, Vol. 56, Issue 1 https://doi.org/10.1117/1.OE.56.1.010901	journal	January 2017
Ultrafast Photoconductive Detectors Based on Semi-Insulating GaAs and InP Tani, Masahiko; Sakai, Kiyomi; Mimura, Hidenori Japanese Journal of Applied Physics, Vol. 36, Issue Part 2, No. 9A/B https://doi.org/10.1143/JJAP.36.L1175	journal	September 1997
Generation and detection of terahertz pulses from biased semiconductor antennas Jepsen, P. Uhd; Jacobsen, R. H.; Keiding, S. R. Journal of the Optical Society of America B, Vol. 13, Issue 11 https://doi.org/10.1364/JOSAB.13.002424	journal	January 1996
Terahertz photoconductive antenna with metal nanoislands Park, Sang-Gil; Choi, Yongje; Oh, Young-Jae Optics Express, Vol. 20, Issue 23 https://doi.org/10.1364/OE.20.025530	journal	January 2012
Nanoplasmonics enhanced terahertz sources Jooshesh, Afshin; Smith, Levi; Masnadi-Shirazi, Mostafa Optics Express, Vol. 22, Issue 23 https://doi.org/10.1364/OE.22.027992	journal	January 2014
All-dielectric nanograting for increasing terahertz radiation power of photoconductive antennas Wang, Kemeng; Gu, Jianqiang; Shi, Wenqiao Optics Express, Vol. 28, Issue 13 https://doi.org/10.1364/OE.394600	journal	January 2020
THz spintronic emitters: a review on achievements and future challenges Papaioannou, Evangelos Th.; Beigang, René Nanophotonics, Vol. 10, Issue 4 https://doi.org/10.1515/nanoph-2020-0563	journal	December 2020

Similar Records

Terahertz Detection with Perfectly-Absorbing Photoconductive Metasurface

Journal Article · Wed Apr 03 20:00:00 EDT 2019 · Nano Letters · OSTI ID:1515200

Terahertz Detection Using Enhanced Two‐Step Absorption in Photoconductive Metasurfaces Gated at λ = 1.55 µm

Journal Article · Sat Oct 29 20:00:00 EDT 2022 · Advanced Optical Materials · OSTI ID:1995849

Related Subjects

47 OTHER INSTRUMENTATION

Highly Efficient Terahertz Photoconductive Detectors Operating at μW-level Gate Powers Hale, Lucy; Harris, Charles; Luk, Ting S. Willie https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.c.5450643 The current record is supplemented by this collection	collection	January 2021
Highly Efficient Terahertz Photoconductive Detectors Operating at μW-level Gate Powers Hale, Lucy; Harris, Charles; Luk, Ting S. Willie https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.c.5450643.v1 The current record is supplemented by this collection	collection	January 2021
Highly Efficient Terahertz Photoconductive Detectors Operating at μW-level Gate Powers Hale, Lucy; Harris, Charles; Luk, Ting S. Willie https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.c.5450643.v2 The current record is supplemented by this collection	collection	January 2021

Highly efficient terahertz photoconductive metasurface detectors operating at microwatt-level gate powers

Citation Formats

References (31)

Linked Research (3)

Similar Records

Related Subjects